Why biologists should read Aristotle (or why philosophy matters for the life sciences and why the life sciences matter for philosophy)

This note discusses the importance of Natural History (biology) in the development of Aristotle philosophy and scientific outlook, and so the importance of considering Aristotle's philosophy as a necessary and useful background for contemporary biology

On natural selection and Hume's second problem

David Hume's famous riddle of induction implies a second problem related to the question of whether the laws and principles of nature might change in the course of time. Claims have been made that modern developments in physics and astrophysics corroborate the translational invariance of the laws of physics in time. However, the appearance of a new general principle of nature, which might not be derivable from the known laws of physics, or that might actually be a non-physical one (this means completely independent of physical science) supports the notion that the course of nature can change in time. Here it is argued that natural selection satisfies the criteria that identify a general principle of nature which so far, appears to be non-derivable from the known laws of physics and therefore, it is likely that it arose in the course of time, thus leaving open again the quest for a true solution to Hume's second problem

Synthetic life, what for and what future?

This text answers the question, posed by the editor, on the philosophical and social issues resulting from the synthetic assembly of a modified bacterial genome that was introduced in an existing bacterial species (M.mycoides)and so it was claimed to represent the first ever kind of synthetic life produced by human manipulation

Aristotle and the search of a rational framework for biology

Chance and necessity are mainstays of explanation in current biology, dominated by the neo-Darwinian outlook, a blend of the theory of evolution by natural selection with the basic tenets of population genetics. In such a framework the form of living organisms is somehow a side effect of highly contingent, historical accidents. Thus, at a difference of other sciences, biology apparently lacks theoretical principles that in a law-like fashion may explain the emergence and persistence of the characteristic forms of living organisms that paradoxically, given the current importance attributed to chance, can be grouped into organized structural typologies. Nevertheless, the present essay shows that since its origins in Aristotelian natural history, biology aimed at achieving rational, non-accidental, explanations for the wide variety of living forms endowed with characteristic behaviors that constitute the landscape of biological species

Estructura y función de la unidad fundamental de replicación del DNA (el replicón) en eucariontes

La replicación del dna es indispensable para la transmisión de la información genética y permite copiar el genoma con gran exactitud. Desde el siglo pasado se propuso el modelo del replicón para explicar el mecanismo general de duplicación del genoma en bacterias. Estudios posteriores en la levadura permitieron identificar proteínas y secuencias de dna que participan en el inicio de la replicación en forma similar a lo descrito en procariontes, esto condujo a intentar generalizar el modelo del replicón a los eucariontes. Se han descrito algunos factores clave en el proceso de replicación que están conservados desde la levadura hasta el humano. Sin embargo, todavía no se comprende cómo se determinan los sitios de inicio de la replicación y cuál es la estructura del replicón en los metazoarios. En este artículo se sugiere que la organización topológica del dna en el núcleo celular determina la estructura y función de los replicones en los eucariontes superiores